


Warmth

by womeninthesequel



Series: Happy Accidents [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Female James Potter, Fluff, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Roommates, Showers, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28539177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womeninthesequel/pseuds/womeninthesequel
Summary: Lily comes back to the dorm really late one night. In an effort not to bother anyone, she goes to take a shower before crawling into bed.She doesn't have to do it alone.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Series: Happy Accidents [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090721
Comments: 27
Kudos: 52
Collections: Fem! Jily





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> This started when I saw some of thejilyship's tags on a Tumblr post and took them as a personal request to write a follow up to her wonderful story. When looking for some inspiration, I had to add a Tumblr prompt from theroomofreq. 
> 
> Long live fem!Jily!

Fortunately, the house elves must have discovered whatever happened on that fateful day. After the remaining students were discharged from that horrible bout of food poisoning, the numbers in the hospital wing declined sharply. At dinner for the next few days, Lily poked her food with a fork more than she would normally, but it appeared to be safe. 

In the weeks since, nothing like that happened again. 

Lily’s following shifts in the hospital wing were better. She wasn’t nearly falling asleep before she made it to the dorm. Her feet didn’t drag so much on the way back, and her muscles weren’t quite so sore. When she fell into bed at the end of the night, she didn’t worry that she was in the wrong one.

Though, that might have been because another bed in the dorm was starting to become as familiar as her own.

Per her usual routine when she got back from brewing potions and tending to sick students, Lily disappeared into the bathroom before taking stock of the girls’ dormitory. She couldn’t be trusted to think properly until she had a chance to wash off the day and change into something more comfortable. 

If she had to guess, Mary was already asleep. She knew better than to wait up for Lily. If she was gone after dinner, she was likely gone for the night. This term, Lily had developed a habit of staying in the hospital wing long enough that she needed a pass from Madame Pomfrey to return to her common room. While the headlines continued to get more grim, doing anything, even on the small scale of helping in the school’s hospital wing, felt like a necessity. 

Lily intentionally didn’t check if Jamie found her way into bed yet. 

While her time in the hospital wing settled down over the past few weeks, Lily’s thrumming pulse didn’t get the message. She was starting to like going to bed tired, because it meant she couldn’t stay up all night, fitting her body against Jamie’s and wondering if the other girl thought about the same things she did. 

Since the time she accidentally slept in Jamie’s bed, it was anyone’s guess as to which one they would end up in for the night. The sure thing was the fact that they would be nestled against each other. It no longer surprised Lily when Jamie accidentally woke her by playing with her hair or her leg ended up on Jamie’s hip at some point.

It became the expected way she would end every day. No matter what else happened, she had a warm bed and warmer embrace to greet her. 

Increasingly, they were tired enough to fall asleep without much comment. As N.E.W.T.s approached, teachers assigned more work. They had more things and more responsibilities to keep them busy. On those nights, Lily would try to catch herself before yawning widely. Jamie noticed immediately and pushed her textbooks away to open the covers for her. Already in her pajamas, Lily would crawl in next to her.

Sometimes, especially when they had the chance to be a little lazy on the weekend, they whispered for a few minutes before one of them drifted into sleep. Lily fondly remembered the way Jamie tried to fight off sleep until it took its hold. 

Other nights, they would stay up half the night, tracing patterns on each other’s backs or palms. They made up games where the other would have to guess what they tried to draw or write. As the hours passed and their roommates slept on, they would talk about whatever came to mind.

It was now a regular occurance, one she looked forward to every night, but that didn’t mean her heart stopped racing whenever Jamie kissed her temple. 

Now, she put thought into what she wore to bed. She brushed her teeth and took a shower before even thinking about falling asleep. The closer they got, the more nights they shared a blanket, the more she thought about things like the state of her hair after a long shift in the hospital wing. 

If she thought about it for too long, she was prone to getting caught in one of her overthinking spirals. As much as she loved falling asleep with Jamie’s arms around her, they hadn’t really talked about it. 

They talked about what was happening outside the castle. They talked about hopes and fears and the things in between. They talked about their friends and what they wanted to work on in the next week.

They talked about many things, but they didn’t talk about them.

Lily shook her head. One thing at a time.

After turning on the faucet, Lily pushed the bathroom door closed with her foot. She left it open slightly, little more than an inch, for some of the steam to escape. 

Pulling her hair out of its braid and dropping her jumper on the floor, she checked the temperature a few times with her fingertips as she found all of the things she needed for a shower. With four girls living in such a small shared space, it felt like she was looking for her shampoo and favorite soap almost daily. 

Some of the thoughts that swirled in her mind until she couldn’t put them in order settled when she got under the water. Lily rolled her neck and moved her fingers through her hair to get the full effect of the satisfying moment when the drain took away her worries and the water soothed her tense muscles.

Lily closed her eyes and scrubbed her fingers through her hair. A shower, so simple and necessary, was its own kind of magic. It was as powerful as some of the spells she taught to first years who needed a little tutoring. Humming, Lily felt herself truly relaxing for the first time all day.

As she tended to do, Lily unconsciously started to sing. Mary often teased her for the way she would accompany the most mundane tasks with a hummed or sung line. Sometimes they were real songs, but they could also be a series of notes that Lily couldn’t identify. Once, when they had their own version of a sleepover that ended with them both in Mary’s bed, her friend swore that Lily even sang in her sleep.

This time, it started as a hummed melody that didn’t belong to a particular song. After a few measures, she quietly added the words from a song she caught on the wireless that week. Between that and the water, she couldn’t hear anything from the other room. She gave herself permission not to think about anyone else for a few minutes.

“You know, Evans…” a voice came, shattering the spell created by the combination of hot water and a slightly off-key melody.

Lily’s eyes flew open as she froze with her hands still in her hair.

“You have a pretty good voice.”

Peering around the edge of the curtain, Lily’s eyes found Jamie. She leaned back against the sink with her arms casually crossed over her chest. Jamie was still in her Quidditch practice clothes with her hair tied into a messy ponytail and a streak of mud across her cheek.

“Were you hoping to use the shower?” Lily asked when she found her voice again.

“Yeah, I was.” Jamie nodded. “But I think you claimed it.”

“And all of the hot water,” Lily answered. She let go of the curtain with one hand to check that her water was still as she liked it, hot enough that some might have considered it scalding. “How do you feel about cold showers, Potter?”

The corner of Jamie’s mouth ticked upward. “I’ll manage.”

“If you’re sure.” Lily tilted her head to the side and studied Jamie. Now, she could recognize some of the signs she used to miss. 

Jamie’s easy posture suggested confidence, but Lily saw the way her fingertips pressed into her sleeve. She always tried to project an air that could come across as arrogance. For years, it crawled under Lily’s skin and caused her to make a mental list of all of the things Jamie Potter did to annoy her. 

She constantly messed with her hair or made a point of showing off whenever Lily entered a room. Walking through the halls, she laughed with her friends and tossed her hair like everything amused her. Infuriatingly, she was effortlessly good at Transfiguration and bright in all of her classes. 

Those things, which used to be ready on Lily’s tongue when she needed to scold Jamie, weren’t so bad anymore. 

Perhaps Jamie messed with her hair and tried to show off because Lily entered a room. Instead of finding cruel amusement in everything around her, it was more likely that Jamie was so close to her friends that they knew exactly how to amuse her. Jamie surely was naturally brilliant, but Lily also caught her with a few advanced Transfiguration textbooks under her bed that were beyond even the N.E.W.T. level. 

Since ending up in her bed, Lily realized that she paid more attention to Jamie than nearly anyone else in the school. Putting together all of the comments and looks from Mary over the years about her observations, Lily was willing to admit (at least to herself) that the attention was for reasons not always related to annoyance.

With that new frame, Lily wasn’t sure that the confidence Jamie projected was always true. 

Perhaps her hand didn’t jump to her hair because it needed to look like she just got out of a daring adventure. Maybe it moved because she didn’t know what else to do with her own version of nerves. Maybe Jamie’s brain was as tangled as Lily’s when it came to each other.

“I had another idea,” Lily said.

“What’s that, Evans?”

Lily tried to shrug with the same ease she saw on Jamie. Only one bare shoulder was visible because of the curtain, but she saw Jamie’s eyes go to it. 

That gave her the extra burst of confidence she needed.

“Why don’t you join me?”

It was Jamie’s turn to freeze. Lily felt her overly welcoming smile turn into a smirk when the other girl swallowed.

Before she could test fate by doing something silly like winking, Lily disappeared behind the curtain and let it fall closed. It gave her just enough time to worry that Jamie’s lack of response meant she had gone too far.

She heard the door close with a definitive click. A wave of regret nearly seized her before another sound acted as her saving grace.

The turn of the lock.

Her thoughts went a thousand directions at once.

Lily wasn’t sure if she truly breathed again until Jamie moved the curtain. She took a slow, shaky breath as Jamie stepped into the shower and stood at the other end of the tub. When Jamie’s gaze left Lily’s and started to move down, she resisted the urge to reach for something to cover herself.

This, she knew, was different from anything else they had done. 

In the course of living together for over six years, they saw glimpses of each other. Everyone in the dormitory had incidents of walking in on another girl changing or someone running in to brush their teeth while someone else was taking a shower.

This wasn’t an accidental peek. Lily had invited the other girl into the shower with her. Though Jamie walked into the bathroom and threw her a flirty line, Lily was the one to put this officially in motion. She was the one who gave them permission to move forward.

It wasn’t the time to be modest.

“How hot is the water?” Jamie asked as her gaze stopped around Lily’s chest, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. “You’re turning red, Evans.” 

Honestly, Lily wasn’t sure whether the temperature or Jamie’s presence was causing that.

“Try it for yourself,” she said. Lily put out her hand, which Jamie took. 

It was almost easier to breathe once Jamie was closer. Touching Jamie was easier than watching her look at her. Lily threaded their fingers together and let them drop so there wasn’t much space between them. The water continued to hit her back, but she barely thought about it. Lily tilted her head to make up for the extra few inches Jamie had on her height. 

“Here.” Jamie reached behind her to turn the temperature down a few degrees. When the change hit, she didn’t back away. “Save some for everyone else.”

“Aren’t we already saving some?”

“Maybe,” Jamie allowed. Lily caught the moment when her cheeks moved into a smile with a devious edge. “But we might be here for awhile.”

The next beat was both bone-crushingly long and achingly short. Jamie slid her hand into Lily’s hair and angled her face just so. Though she knew it was coming, Lily’s mind went blissfully blank when Jamie pressed her lips against hers. 

The heat of the water had nothing on this sensation. 

Wherever their skin touched felt like muggle fireworks, but Lily couldn’t bring herself to fear the burn. Instead, she chased the sparks. Nothing that felt like this, nothing that felt so good, could hurt her. Her hands found Jamie’s hair in an effort to get closer. Jamie responded by putting an arm around Lily’s waist and bringing them flush against each other.

The kiss quickly turned into a series of short ones. They chased one another, barely parting for air. As Jamie’s mouth moved to the side and suggested the possibility of charting a path down her neck, Lily tugged on Jamie’s hair to redirect her.

Obediently, Jamie kissed her again. Lily heard and tasted Jamie’s moan at the same time. 

Once they were actually doing this, kissing with the water pouring over them both and their skin touching in a dozen places, Lily couldn’t understand why they waited so long. It was impossible to imagine keeping her hands out of Jamie’s hair when it clung to her wet fingers. 

This, though the memory would probably make her blush when she wasn’t in the middle of it, was as good as anything they had done together. Jamie’s hold was as safe and comforting as the moments when she tucked the blanket under Lily’s chin and teased her for stealing the covers. Her moan filled the air as sweetly as her laughter.

The shared nights, full of light touches and soft kisses, inspired a pleasant feeling that started in Lily’s heart and moved outward. She could recognize traces of that in the fire currently making its way through her veins.

All she could think was more, more, more. 

She had little concept of how they had moved, consumed as she was with memorizing the feel of Jamie’s lips against hers, until her back found the tile wall. When Jamie made to kiss down to her neck again, Lily let her head fall back to grant her more room. 

Lily’s sharp intake of breath echoed in the small space when Jamie nipped sensitive skin. She kissed the spot gently before devoting her full attention to making Lily’s grip tighten on her hair. With somewhat savage pride, Lily hoped it would leave a mark. It would give her something to see in the mirror tomorrow morning and know this wasn’t a foggy fantasy invented in her head.

Her mind spun anew when Jamie continued to her collarbone. Each kiss was deliberate, like Lily was a new spell she was determined to master. When Lily made a sound of approval, she could feel Jamie smiling. 

“Yes,” Lily whispered, unsure if she could articulate anything else. “Yes, Jamie, I want…” 

A loud clattering stopped them both short. 

On reflex, Lily put a hand on Jamie’s upper arm and jerked them both to the side to avoid the second falling shampoo bottle. Like the first, it narrowly missed their toes. 

Jamie straightened, her hair a delightfully ruffled mess. They stayed close, their breath intermingling. Her lips were slightly parted and kiss-swollen, giving Lily an image of how she probably looked. In the course of their snogging, the shower water washed away the mud on Jamie’s face and some of her sweat from practice. 

As her pulse steadied, Lily watched Jamie’s gaze soften. She still had a hand on Lily’s waist, they were still as close as they were a moment ago, but the air was less charged. Lily closed her eyes and held her breath when Jamie leaned forward and kissed the spot where skin peeked through her damp fringe. 

“Well,” Jamie said softly, her forehead resting against Lily’s. “The moment certainly got away from me.”

Lily opened her eyes, taking in the kaleidoscope of colors hidden in Jamie’s hazel. She would, she decided, have to study them more tonight. Already, she could picture them in bed, laying down and facing each other. The thought cued another burst of warmth in her chest that didn’t come from the steam or kisses. 

Peacefully, the whirlwind of thoughts that often plagued her didn’t return as her arms found a place around Jamie’s shoulders. 

“Me too.”

“Good to be on the same page.” 

Lily rubbed a thumb over Jamie’s eyebrow to stop a droplet before it went in her eye. “Looks like you worked hard at practice. Wishing you used the showers in the locker room?”

“Absolutely not.” Jamie laughed and gave her a quick kiss. “I may never use them again.”

“I obviously don’t mind.” 

By now, the water that Jamie adjusted was starting to change from lukewarm to cold. It wasn’t quite unbearable yet, but a small shiver went through Lily.

“Maybe,” Jamie said, nudging her nose against Lily’s, “we should actually get clean.”

“Good plan,” Lily agreed, though she didn’t make a move to leave Jamie’s embrace. “Then we’ll go to bed.”

Jamie affectionately bumped her nose against her cheek. “Yeah?”

“If you want,” Lily answered, grinning. 

“Yes,” Jamie said, burying her face in Lily’s neck and smiling against it. “Yes, yes, yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @women-inthe-sequel!


End file.
